ТОП просматриваемых книг сайта:
Behind the Rock and Beyond. Leon Isackson
Читать онлайн.Название Behind the Rock and Beyond
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781456604592
Автор произведения Leon Isackson
Жанр Учебная литература
Издательство Ingram
At that time procuring any halfway decent rock player was difficult. Jim, Ray and Leon, the faithful trio, practised on. We seemed to go through an endless succession of guitarists and sax players who couldn’t pass the audition. Most of the sax players came from the Neville Thomas School of “rude” players and soon got the “hook” from Jim who sneered at them from the piano. Jim didn’t suffer fools gladly, especially if they couldn’t play rock’n’roll.
We were afraid that it would be all over by the time we got a permanent band together. I remember one day we were practising at Johnny Debien’s place. Johnny was a friend of mine from across the road at Abbotsford, whose father drove us around in a left-hand drive 1957 Oldsmobile Rocket convertible — Wowee!
We stopped practising Summertime Blues to watch a live band on Bandstand, “DIG RICHARDS & THE R’JAYS”. “See,” someone moaned, “even those guys have got their shit together!”
Jimmy finally left his band the Squares after being caught practising with the Off Beats and was replaced by Billy Hucker. Clive lined up a few more jobs for Ray Hoff & the Off Beats, the most memorable being the dance at the Mascot Marina Theatre the same week that Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens, Ray Hoff’s hero, were killed in a plane crash. We still had no sax player, so good old Vince, Ryanny’s elder brother played with us.
Meanwhile, I continued my drum lessons with my favourite drummer, Frank Marcy. I wanted to be able to “read fly shit off the wall” just like he could. I used to watch Frank playing in Bob Gibson’s huge Ford Show orchestra at radio 2GB and would marvel at the way he knew just what to play and when to play it. And he always played it beautifully.
Reading music didn’t help much at this stage of my musical career, so I took a few paying jobs with a rock’n’roll pub band called the Stoneagers with Teddy Lees on vocal and guitar and Roger Keyes on piano, of course (“Keys on piano, get it?”). They played in some pretty horrible places.
One night, June 17 to be exact, after playing at the Erskinville Hotel (I still wasn’t old enough to be allowed into a hotel!), Teddy had a girl in his 1939 Buick and I was sitting in Roger’s car with Roger. Suddenly, Roger disappeared and I was sitting in Roger’s car with Teddy. What was going on?
Roger reappeared after a short time and said to me, “She wants you now.” I didn’t want to appear too young and uncool so I went over to Teddy’s car and looked in the back seat.
“Come in,” beckoned Shirley. I looked around feeling rather embarrassed, then opened the door and got in. My embarrassment turned to trembling trepidation when I saw that Shirley had absolutely not a stitch on! Shirley threw her arms around me and grabbed me in a sensitive place. “You don’t feel too excited,” she whispered. I was too numb to speak. “We’ll soon fix that, darling,” she said in my ear and well ... she did!
Another embarrassing moment of a different kind occurred when the Stoneagers and Ray Hoff & the Off Beats were booked to do a spot at the Matraville RSL, on the same night. I was playing the drums in both bands! We played to a somewhat bewildered audience of elderly people. Here is a quaint extract from the local Matraville ‘Rag’ dated July 12, 1959:
“FOUR O’CLOCK ROCK” AT MATRAVILLE R.S.L. CLUB
Great how-do-you-do at the Club last Sunday afternoon when Rock n Roll music was the vogue. Two bands competed for honours and favours during the afternoon and fears were held for the safety of the roof, which very much looked like lifting.
First the Stoneagers took the stand and promptly “went to town” led by guitarist and vocalist, Ted Lees, a very self-assured and capable entertainer, who gave us the whole “book”, ending up with Why Am I A Teenager In Love?.
The next band, the “Off Beats”, led by vocalist, Ray Hoff, started off their repertoire with the classic, I Met A Big Fat Woman. The pianist in this group, as with the first, forsook the piano stool (strictly for squares) and stood on his own two feet, giving as many gyrations and facial expressions as the vocalist, who of course, these days is expected to go through these gymnastics. All these boys gave an excellent example of modern day rhythm and entertainment and, from the expressions and foot-tapping that went on, it could safely be said that the afternoon was very enjoyable.”
Because of the lack of suitable venues for rock’n’roll, Johnny O’Keefe conned the Police Boys’ Club to run rock’n’roll dances on a permanent basis. These became a bit of a showcase for the limited amount of good rock’n’roll bands and singers in 1958-9. Col Joye & the Joy Boys also had a permanent dance at the Paddington Police Boys’ around about the same time.
Along with Jimmy Taylor and of course my best friend Ryanny (who didn’t actually play anything), we eventually got to see Dig Richards & the R’Jays “live” at Leichhardt Police Boys’ (April 4 1959) where I first met their bass player Peter Baker. On the way to the dance, one of the girls in our party assured us that the R’Jays was a fantastic band and that the singer, Dig Richards had the cutest rosy cheeks. The line-up of the band at that time was Barry Lewis on drums, Peter Marris on silver Selmer saxophone, Jay Boogie on piano, Peter Baker on electric bass, Jonnie Hayton on guitar and Dig Richards on vocals.
Peter Baker invited Ray to get up and sing with the band and Jimmy also sat in on piano, courtesy of Jay Boogie. I can’t remember if I ever got to talk at length to the guitarist Jon Hayton (my co-author) and neither can he!
Another foray to the “famed” Police Boys (June 27, 1959) revealed a newly formed R&R band on the scene — Johnny Rebb & the Rebels. They were Sonny Neville (ex-Houserocker) on guitar, Keith Williams (ex-Dee Jay) on electric bass, Johnny Charter (one time Houserocker) on piano, Jimmy Slogget on tenor saxophone, Johnny Burns on drums and Johnny Rebb (real name, Donny Delbridge) on vocals. Johnny Rebb had a great record out at the time called Hey Sheriff, with Johnny Charter doing the little piano licks. The gentleman of rock’n’roll, Johnny Rebb gave a fairly conservative performance but all the girls still loved him. He looked like the sexy Peter Baker (or was it the other way around?).
Their band was very professional with a nice “fat” sound. The musicianship of some of the rock players was now becoming really first class. Ray didn’t get up and sing with the band this time because he was too busy punching some guy who called him a poofter. Consequently, Ray was thrown out and banned for a week. To their credit, the police ran a pretty tight dance.
RYANNY GETS A PADDLE
SATURDAY, AUGUST 15, 1959: Johnny Devlin & the Devils, from New Zealand, started a permanent Tuesday night dance at Surryville and were advertising a band competition. We had just acquired a permanent guitar player for the band — Darby Wilson. We first saw Darby on 6 O’Clock Rock playing Johnny B. Goode. Although we had entered the band competition for Tuesday, August 18, we still had no permanent electric bass player, so Jim lined up Fred Lawrence, known as Flooby Fred. Fred earned the name “Flooby” because he had one of the biggest dongers known to mankind. Why it should have been called a “Flooby” is a mystery that has been lost to antiquity.
Ryanny and I were waiting for the guys to come to rehearsal when the phone rang. It was Jim. Flooby Fred had let us down. What were we going to do? We only had three days. We couldn’t go on at Surryville without an electric bass! Ryanny and I sat there looking at each other. We were devastated.
“Even if we got somebody on bass they wouldn’t be able to learn the songs in time,” I moaned. Ryanny nodded. “He would